In my Canadian Pat. No. 1,200,977, issued Feb. 25, 1986, an information gathering system is described in which sets of questions are printed on question sheets which are aligned in a specific way as described in the patent. Answers are marked on a set of answer sheets aligned with the question sheets. After the answers have been completed by a user, the answer sheets may be removed for analysis. The system is useful in many question and answer situations but is particularly suitable for use by a doctor who must obtain certain basic information from a new patient before handling the patient's particular health problem. As described in the patent, the question sheets may be in one language and the answer sheets may be in a different language.
The present invention deals with the problem that while the question sheets are intended for repeated use, each answer sheet can only be used once. The answer sheets are therefore eventually used up and must be replenished. Practical systems used in the past to contain the question and answer pages were therefore loose-leaf arrangements in which all of the pages were held together detachably in one of various ways, so that when the question sheets were used up, the entire structure could be taken apart and fresh question sheets could be added. This arrangement was bulky, expensive, did not readily lie flat, and could not conveniently be folded back on itself.